ABSTRACT
Often, the cut flowers that we buy as a gift are not grown in our home country, but imported. For example, in the Netherlands, known for its flowers, of all roses sold more come from abroad than from Dutch producers. For roses, the most important sources are Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ecuador, Zambia and Uganda, not places next door. The Netherlands is a cut-flower hub in Europe, which means that a lot of the imported flowers are re-exported to other destinations. In this chapter, we will follow the ‘Dutch’ flowers back to Kenya, the main supplier of cut flowers to the Netherlands. We will further zoom in to the area around Lake Naivasha, the main cut-flower producing area within Kenya. Lake Naivasha lies in the Rift Valley, about 80 km northwest of Nairobi. It is Kenya’s second largest freshwater lake without surface outlet. The lake remains fresh due to a significant outflow of groundwater. The flower farmers around the lake consume substantial amounts of water, which they pump from the groundwater or take from the lake itself or from the rivers that feed the lake. At the same time, the lake is listed as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. In the last three decades, the area around Lake Naivasha has become the main site of Kenya’s horticultural industry (mainly cut flowers), which is Kenya’s third most important foreign exchange earner after tea and tourism. Since the late 1990s, the flower farms started to expand at a faster rate (Becht et al., 2005). The total irrigated commercial farm area around Lake Naivasha is now estimated to be about 4,450 ha. Cut flowers account for about 43 per cent of the irrigated area, followed by vegetables with 41 per cent and fodder with 15 per cent (Musota, 2008). The major flower varieties grown and exported from Kenya are roses, carnations, alstroemeria, lisianthus, statice and cut foliage. Roses dominate the export market, accounting for over 70 per cent of the export volume (HCDA, 2007). The main
flower growing regions are Lake Naivasha, Thika and Kiambu/Limuru (EPZA, 2005), with Lake Naivasha accounting for about 95 per cent of the cultivated area. Lake Naivasha has attracted attention and concerns from both national and international organizations. The main stakeholders have shown concern about the health of the lake, mainly related to the decline of the lake level, deterioration of the water quality and reduction of biodiversity. Some of the main stakeholders active around the lake are the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, the Lake Naivasha Growers Group and Kenya Wildlife Services. The concerns have led to the development of a Management Plan in 1996 by the main stakeholders (Becht et al., 2005). Around that time, the Lake Naivasha Management Implementation Committee was formed to execute the management plan. The plan was officially approved by the Government of Kenya in 1997. In this chapter I will report on a study we carried out on the water footprint of horticulture within the Lake Naivasha Basin, with a focus on the flower farms (Mekonnen et al., 2012). We assessed the potential for mitigating this footprint by involving cut-flower traders, retailers and consumers overseas. More specific, we explored the idea of a voluntary sustainable-flower agreement between major agents along the flower supply chain, involving a water-sustainability premium to be paid by the consumers in the countries importing flowers from Kenya.
